Situating Local Culture in Elt Material Design

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The English Teacher Vol. XLI(2) December 2012 SITUATING LOCAL CULTURE IN ELT MATERIAL DESIGN IN THE INDONESIAN EFL CONTEXT

Dana Yudha Kristiawan Universitas 17 Agustus 1945 Banyuwangi, Indonesia

ABSTRACT

The teaching of English using materials that adopts the target culture has been hotly debated in the last decades. Most ELT materials adopt the target culture without weighing how local cultures enrich the materials. This makes it difficult for students to understand the English materials as they encounter linguistic resources and social practices that are alien to the students. This article addresses how local cultures can be integrated into ELT materials in the Indonesian EFL context. It briefly discusses four critical issues in integrating local cultures into ELT materials, including: (1) topic selection, (2) the use of visual aids, (3) learning tasks, and (4) materials evaluation. The article also discusses the implementation of incorporating local cultures into classroom materials, and provides some step-by-step guidelines for local culture oriented ELT material design. The study argues that when learning a target language (e.g., English), students need to be aware of how their local cultures enrich their linguistic resources and social practices, thereby making their language learning more meaningful. Keywords: ELT, local culture, material design, EFL, Indonesia Introduction EFL learning and teaching should ideally be allied to the context of real life through the presentation of culture in which students are immersed. Alpetekin (1993) argues that in learning a language, schematic knowledge is socially and culturally acquired and situated. He elaborates that schematic knowledge of foreign language learners, for instance, is affected by the culture of their mother tongue. For example, children in Middle East cannot say that a dog is a man’s best friend, but they would prefer to say that a dog is a dirty and dangerous animal, and also they cannot touch this animal because of their cultural norms. Teaching EFL adopting the target culture makes it difficult for students to understand the material as they find unfamiliar lexical as well as cultural items which are alien to them. In line with this, Post and Rathet (1996) argue that

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The English Teacher Vol. XLI(2) December 2012

number in the brackets and then describe Ider Barong Bumi Ritual festival with your partner. Work in pairs.

(…….) (…….)

(…….) (…….)

Figure 2: Pictures as visual aids

As noted earlier in the use of visual aids, such visual aids can enhance students’ level of understanding the material presented, and they can be used to reinforce the cultural message, clarify points and create interest. By using visual aids, students can re-memorize the events or things that students already know. Task 3 aims to ask students to reorder and describe Ider Barong Bumi festival. The students are asked to describe the festival to their partners. Working cooperatively allows students to help their peers who may experience difficulty in finding the right word or in constructing ideas. The nature of the task is similar to Task 1 and Task 2. Task 3 can be used for while- and post-reading tasks

Task 4: Descriptive Writing TaskWrite a letter on the postcard below to your friend in another country. Tell a story about the Festival of Ider Barong Bumi Ritual you have experienced so that

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Situating Local Culture in Elt Material Design